Good engineers don’t create as much tech debt in the first place, or if they do it’s straight-forward code that’s relatively easy to refactor. The #1 fix to prevent most serious tech debt and also get features done quickly is the quality of your engineers (or yourself if you’re the one coding). Someone knowledgeable with several completed projects and up-to-date knowledge should create the codebase.
Also it depends a lot on what stage your project is in. If you have zero customers or money coming in, your focus should be on creating a working product and getting customers. That means zero tests for now, just a working product. It will also more quickly validate if you’re working on the right thing or not, or if you need to pivot.
One problem I see is when engineers want to solve the tech debt problem before even proving the product should exist. No, first establish the demand, get real cash flow, then start focusing on tech debt.
If you are an entrepreneur then tech debt is literally the last of your concerns. If you grow enough where it is then it’s a good problem to have - the biggest problem is typically not enough customers, not too much tech debt.
On the other hand if you are working at Google, and know for a fact thousands or millions of people will use your code, then you should “lock it down” right at the beginning, have all the testing upfront, good documentation, etc.
Also it depends a lot on what stage your project is in. If you have zero customers or money coming in, your focus should be on creating a working product and getting customers. That means zero tests for now, just a working product. It will also more quickly validate if you’re working on the right thing or not, or if you need to pivot.
One problem I see is when engineers want to solve the tech debt problem before even proving the product should exist. No, first establish the demand, get real cash flow, then start focusing on tech debt.
If you are an entrepreneur then tech debt is literally the last of your concerns. If you grow enough where it is then it’s a good problem to have - the biggest problem is typically not enough customers, not too much tech debt.
On the other hand if you are working at Google, and know for a fact thousands or millions of people will use your code, then you should “lock it down” right at the beginning, have all the testing upfront, good documentation, etc.